Brain Food #785: Finding space for clarity
"Beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us"
Thoughts of the day
Nothing leaves more space for thought and clarity than space itself.
Canadian actor William Shatner, who portrayed James T. Kirk in Star Trek, became the oldest living person to travel to space, at the age of 90. Like many space travelers before him, he felt the almost unbearable sense of perspective that accompanies what is known as the ‘Overview Effect.’ But Shatner also came face to face with his own mortality:
“…when I looked in the opposite direction, into space, there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold . . . all I saw was death.
I saw a cold, dark, black emptiness. It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth. It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. I turned back toward the light of home. I could see the curvature of Earth, the beige of the desert, the white of the clouds and the blue of the sky. It was life. Nurturing, sustaining, life. Mother Earth. Gaia. And I was leaving her.
Everything I had thought was wrong. Everything I had expected to see was wrong.
I had thought that going into space would be the ultimate catharsis of that connection I had been looking for between all living things—that being up there would be the next beautiful step to understanding the harmony of the universe. In the film “Contact,” when Jodie Foster’s character goes to space and looks out into the heavens, she lets out an astonished whisper, “They should’ve sent a poet.” I had a different experience, because I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound.”
There is a great dose of irony (and marketing appeal) in sending to space a man who became known for pretending to be in it for most of his career, only for him to realise that space does not have much more to offer than the world we are currently in.
Running away is not a strategy, but maintaining a sense of perspective can help.
The ticket cost $28m. For the rest of us, similar experiences can be created here on Earth, with a little imagination.
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